MAGNA CHARTA IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

extreme unction to those going out of it. The rupture continued for several years; but the King remained obstinate, and retaliated by confiscating the estates of the clergy. The Pope again applied the screw. He declared that John had forfeited his crown, released his subjects from their allegiance, proclaimed a crusade against England, and commissioned the French King to execute it. Craven and treacherous, as he was truculent and tyrannical, John surrendered to the Pontiff, acknowledged his appointment to the primacy of the English Church, consented to do homage to the Pope which, presently, with bended knees and folded hands, he accorded to the Pope's legate, who, with insolent triumph, trampled under foot the first instalment of the abject sovereign's tribute-money; and finally the degraded monarch drew up the charter cited in the bull now before us, in which he formally resigned England and Ireland to God, to St. Peter and St. Paul, and to Pope Innocent and his successors in the apostolical chair, agreeing to hold his dominions as feudatory of the Romish Church, by paying a thousand marks yearly.

The

covery of the ancient Saxon privileges of which they had been deprived by their Norman conquerors. In this cause the clergy joined the nobles, and even the power of the Pope failed to repress their ardour or daunt their resolution. They persevered and triumphed. On the plains of Runnymede, in the year 1215, was extorted from the tyrant John the Magna Charta Communium Libertatum, the Great Charter of the Common Liberties. By this deed the clergy and nobility secured various provisions advantageous to their respective orders. But its effect upon the common people, then in a state of villainage, or vassalage to the landed proprietors, although less direct and apparent, was destined to be greatly more important and permanent. rise of towns and the origin of burghal privileges, conduced more to the extinction of villainage than any other cause; and without intending it, the barons and clergy gave an irresistible impulse to the progress of freedom amongst the lower classes, by introducing into the Charter a clause consolidating and protecting the liberties and privileges of towns. But the article by The other historical deed is Mag- which the foundations of our free na Charta. A year had scarcely constitution were laid broad and elapsed after his reconciliation with deep was that which proclaimed that the Pope, when King John became "No freeman shall be apprehended involved in the contest with the or imprisoned, or disseised (that is, Barons of England, which resulted deprived of anything he possesses), in establishing the foundations of or outlawed, or banished, or any our national liberty. The King had way destroyed, nor will we go upon rendered himself obnoxious to all him, nor will we send upon him ranks, by the oppressive and arbi- (pronounce sentence against him, trary character of his government. or allow any of the judges to do so), His rapacious exactions, his licen- except by the legal judgment of his tious habits, and the surrender of peers, or by the law of the land. the independence of the kingdom to (Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, the Pope, had sunk their monarch aut differemus rectum aut judicium.) so low in the eyes of his subjects, To none will we sell, to none will we that everything seemed favourable deny, to none will we delay right or for their striking a blow, not merely justice." From this epoch the disat the arbitrary prerogative of the tinction between the Norman and reigning sovereign, but for the re-the Saxon race began to melt away,

and it is here, as Mr. Macaulay has also injured by the fire which observed, that the history of the partly destroyed the Cottonian English nation commences. Hither-collection. A set of the Great to the history of successive reigns Seals of the British sovereigns is had been a record of wrongs in- preserved here. One of the oldest flicted and sustained by different English charters is the title to tribes. "When John became king," Battle Abbey, in Sussex, granted remarks the historian just named, by William the Conqueror. This "the distinction between Saxons and once famous ecclesiastical foundaNormans was strongly marked, but tion owed its origin to the battle of before the end of the reign of his Hastings, which decided the Norgrandson it had almost disappeared. man conquest, in 1066. The AbIn the time of Richard the First, the bey was commenced by the Conordinary imprecation of a Norman queror the year after. gentleman was, 'May I become an Englishman!' His ordinary form of indignant denial was, 'Do you take me for an Englishman?' The descendant of such a gentleman, a hundred years later, was proud of the English name."

The library contains a collection of English newspapers, stretching back to the first periodical publication, which is a pamphlet, dated 1588, and called the English Mercurie. The first newspaper, properly so called, did not appear till many years after. The oldest newspaper we noticed in the collection was dated 1616, and was occupied with "News out of Holland." Till long after this period occasional

In the memorable interview between the King and the barons, the latter appear to have submitted their demands drawn up in the form of preliminary articles of agreement, to which John affixed pamphlets and tracts served the his seal. The articles were then embodied in the Charter, copies of which were sent, after being signed, to each county or each diocese in England; but of these only three are now known to exist. One is preserved in the library of the cathedral at Salisbury, and two are deposited in the British Museum. One of the latter is said to have been rescued from the scissors of a tailor, who was proceeding to cut the parchment into measures. They bear the marks of fire, having been slightly injured when part of the Cottonian library, before it was deposited in the Museum, was burnt, in 1731. In one copy, the waxen seal affixed by the King has been partially melted; in the other, it is destroyed.

Amongst the ancient charters in this part of the collection is the Bull of Pope Leo X., conferring on Henry VIII. the title of "Defender of the Faith." This document was

purpose of the newspaper, which did not assume anything like its present character till after the Revolution of 1688. Mr. Macaulay describes the earlier efforts at newspaper literature in his History of England. He mentions that in 1685 nothing like the London daily paper of our time existed, or could exist, for want of capital, skill, and freedom. The political conflicts which preceded the Revolution gave rise to a number of publications, which are thus described :"None exceeded in size a single small leaf. The quantity of matter which one of them contained in a year was not more than is often found in two numbers of the Times." Then came the London Gazette. "The contents generally were a royal proclamation, two or three Tory addresses, notices of two or three promotions, an account of a skirmish between the Imperial troops and the Janissaries on the

BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

305

Danube, a description of a highway- the British Museum at the expense man, an announcement of a grand of £14,000. Sir Joseph Banks' licockfight between two persons of brary of natural history, Garrick's honour, and an advertisement of dramatic collection, Musgrave's exfering a reward for a stray dog. tensive biographical collection, four The whole made up two pages collections of French political tracts, of moderate size. Whatever was belonging to the period of the first communicated respecting matters Revolution, and a similar collection of the highest moment, was com- of political pamphlets published municated in the most meagre and in England during the civil wars formal style. The most important of Charles the First's time, are parliamentary debates, the most amongst the notable features of the important state trials recorded in library. our history, were passed over in Amongst the manuscripts, not profound silence. In the capital the least curious we saw, was the the coffee-houses supplied in some Basilicon Doron of King James the measure the place of a journal. First, in his own hand-writing-a Thither the Londoners flocked, as treatise on the art of government, the Athenians of old flocked to addressed by the King to his prothe market-place, to hear whether mising son Prince Henry, who there was any news. There men died young, and showing (what might learn how brutally a Whig was by no means peculiar to "the had been treated the day before in wisest fool in Christendom") how Westminster Hall, or what horrible much easier it is to speculate plauaccounts the letters from Edin- sibly, than to rule well. There are burgh gave of the torturing of many manuscripts here which had Covenanters." In 1690 there were found their way into the ancient nine London newspapers published royal library of England, at the weekly. In Queen Anne's reign, period of the breaking up of the in 1709, they had increased to monastic institutions of this couneighteen, including one daily paper. try, and some of these documents In the reign of George I. there retain upon their blank leaves the were three daily, six weekly, and maledictions denounced upon those ten three times a-week. The col- who should alienate them from the lection of newspapers in the Mu- places where they were deposited. seum was commenced by Sir Hans One of the most ancient manuSloane. The Burney Collection scripts is the "Codex Alexandriwas added to these in 1818, at the nus," written in uncial characters cost of £1000. This department on vellum, in four quarto volumes, of the library is now supplied by the Commissioners of Stamps, who forward to the Museum the copies deposited in their office by the publishers.

There are two extensive collections of music in the library, one of which belonged to Dr. Charles Burney, the composer, and father of Madame D'Arblay, the novelist; and the other to Sir John Hawkins. The Rev. Dr. Burney, son of the composer, and a ripe scholar, left a library which was purchased for

and supposed to be the oldest existing Greek manuscript of the Bible in existence, dating betwixt the fourth and sixth centuries. It was a gift to Charles the First from the Patriarch of Constantinople. There are several early copies of the Latin gospels, one written about the year 800, splendidly illuminated, and believed to have once belonged to the Venerable Bede. A collection of MSS. formed by the first Marquis of Lansdowne, cost the British Par

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of Guadaloupe; and as this was the first instance in which human bones had ever been discovered in the solid rock, not a few inconsiderate reasoners leaped to the conclusion that here at last was evidence irrefragable of a greatly higher anti

assigned to it by the most ancient writings in the world; the pretensions of which writings to a Divine authority were believed by this class of thinkers to succumb to the same conclusive testimony. But when the fossil and the rock in which it was entombed came to be examined, the idea of its geological antiquity was declared to be utterly untenable, and the hopes which infidelity had begun to found upon it were most effectually dissipated. There

liament £4925; they are chiefly | Admiralty, is one of the most historical, but include a rare ver- attractive objects in that unrivalled sion of the Bible in French, upon collection. It was found imbedded vellum, of Charles V.'s time. in a mass of limestone in the island Amongst the classical manuscripts is one of the earliest extant of Homer's Odyssey, and another of the Iliad, the latter having cost 600 guineas. There is an extensive collection of ancient Irish manuscripts, including The Brehon Laws, by which Ireland was go-quity for the human race than is verned before the Anglo-Norman invasion. A selection from the manuscript collections of the late Richard Heber was purchased at £2000. There are in the Museum numerous Egyptian and Greek papyri, or writings on the material formed from the cellular tissue of the papyrus plant, which was used for this purpose before the invention of modern paper. From the ruins of Herculaneum there have been dug up no fewer than 1800 papyri, which have been de-are not now two opinions amongst posited in the museum at Naples. The manuscript department of the library is rapidly increasing. Independently of those MSS. classed under the names of their collectors, there have been added 17,416, of which 2416 have been obtained since the year 1844. These are in Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, Armenian, Persian, Venetian, Portuguese, Chinese, Mexican, Russian, German, Italian, Welsh, French, Flemish, and early English. The illuminated manuscripts are objects of much interest. They are generally curious examples of conventual art in the middle ages, and some of them are eminently beautiful.

geologists as to the age of the skeleton, or the nature of the rock in which it was preserved. The bones themselves are not mineralized or petrified, but retain, according to the analysis of Sir Humphry Davy, the usual constituents of fresh bone, namely, animal matter and phosphate of lime, and in fact they were of a somewhat soft consistency when first exposed to the air. These facts were alone sufficient to have upset the wild notions which took possession of the minds of sceptics in religion and sciolists in science, when the Guadaloupe skeleton was discovered. But its presumed high antiquity was still further disproved by the condition of the rock, which THE FOSSIL HUMAN SKELETON OF is a bed of limestone forming a

GUADALOUPE IN THE BRITISH

MUSEUM.

The fossil human skeleton of Guadaloupe, which was brought to this country by Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, and presented to the Museum by the Lords of the

sloping bank betwixt the island cliffs and the sea, and lying within high water-mark; consisting of consolidated sand, with fragments of shells and madrepores or corals, of species inhabiting the present seas; and stone arrow-heads, carved

HUMAN SKELETON OF GUADALOUPE.

307

stone and wooden ornaments, and Cuvier in comparative anatomy remains of pottery, have also been enabled that profound philosopher found imbedded in it. The rock is to declare his conviction, before the in the vicinity of the volcano called skeleton of Guadaloupe had been the Souffriere. It is not surpris- described, that no human remains ing, therefore, that in an island lia- had ever been discovered in a fossil ble to volcanic convulsions, earth- state. To this subject he devotes quakes, hurricanes, and inundations a chapter in his Theory of the both of water and of sand, human Earth. The reader may remember bodies should occasionally have the gypsum quarries about Paris, been overwhelmed in the drifting whence Cuvier derived so many of sand, which has ultimately become the osteological relics, which at the indurated. Similar aggregations bidding of his reconstructive genius, of sand, gravel, and other detritus, bone uniting to bone, sprung into consolidated by means of deposits primitive forms, unknown to the of iron or lime from their solutions present world, and which had been in water, are familiar to all ob- buried for ages at unfathomable servers. Such deposits on a large depths under the earth. The inscale are in progress on the shores ductive process by which these reof the Mediterranean, on the coast sults-this "resurrection in miniaof Sicily, and of the West Indies, ture," as he described it was atthe Bermudas, and other islands, tained, is without a parallel in the and in which the remains of plants history of science. The labourers and animals, and articles of human in these quarries, the unconscious fabric, are becoming incrusted and instruments of his brilliant discointombed. In the museum of the veries, were under the firm persuaAmerican Philosophical Society at sion that a great proportion of the Philadelphia, Sir Chas. Lyell was bones which they brought to his shown a slab of limestone from museum were those of the human Santas in Brazil, procured by Capt. skeleton. But he informs us that Elliot of the United States navy, "having seen and carefully exwhich contains a human skull and amined many thousands of these other bones, with fragments of bones, I may safely affirm that not shells, some of them partially re- a single fragment of them has ever taining their colour. Sir Charles belonged to our species." Again, observed that the calcareous rock in reference to the supposed human resembles that of Guadaloupe, but remains which Spallanzani brought is less solid; and he mentions that to Pavia from the island of Cerigo, he was informed that several hun- M. Cuvier affirms "that there is dreds of human skeletons had been not a single fragment among them dug out of the same deposit about that ever formed part of a human the year 1827. He supposes that skeleton." And the general conthe soil now indurated may have clusion of this sagacious naturalist at one time been an Indian burial- has been confirmed by all subseground, which had become sub-quent observations:- "The estabmerged in the sea, as he observed lishment of mankind in those counserpulæ upon the rock, and had tries in which the fossil bones of again been elevated above the water. land-animals have been found, that Even in the lakes of Forfarshire is to say, in the greatest part of there is a deposit of fresh-water Europe, Asia, and America, must limestone in progress, containing necessarily have been posterior not recent shells and aquatic plants. only to the revolutions which covered up these bones, but also to

The unrivalled researches of M.